For Tomorrow
by the birdman in a blue box
Summary: The Gears have won the war. Now they must rebuild, but what will they find now? What emerged from the dark after the monsters were all gone?
1. Chapter 1

_ Whump, whump, whump,_ went the rotary blades of the King Raven as it moved towards the small town of Mercy. Marcus closed his eyes as flashbacks played in front of his eyes.

_ "Dom, what the fuck are you doing?" _

_ "Pulling the plug on 'em Marcus! Jump, will you? Do it!"_

_ "Dom! No!"_

_ "Marcus! He's gone! There's nothing you can do!"_

_ "Get off me! God damn it, let me get him out of there!"_

_ "It's okay Marcus… it's okay. Come on we gotta go now."_

"Marcus?" Carmine asked, pulling him out of his trance. Marcus' face had slipped from his usual stone gaze into an expression of sorrow, like a switch he pulled himself from sadness and let his iron side show.

"Yeah?" his baritone voice that could rumble glass asked in a tone that suggested irritation.

"We're here." Baird said simply. Even his smartass comments stopped for a moment sensing Marcus' distress.

"Let's get this over with." Marcus ordered as he pulled his Lancer off of the magnetic plate on his back.

The remaining members of the Coalition of Ordered Governments, or COG for short, had expressed interest in expanding the remaining low tens of thousands of humans under their protection to the town of Mercy. The island of Azura could only hold so many for so long with their current food stores. Colonel Hoffman, the highest-ranking member of the COG, had ordered Delta to explore Mercy to see if there was a chance the COG could expand to Mercy and let the civilians inhabit the buildings that remained and if the nearby fields could be suitable for farming and raising livestock.

Delta-One was composed of Corporal Damon Baird, Private Samantha Byrne, known by everyone as just Sam, Private Clayton Carmine, and Marcus. Marcus turned and peered at the town, trying to see if it had been lived in recently.

"Carmine, you and I will take right. Baird, Sam, take left." Marcus ordered as he slowly began to walk off.

"Really? I can't take the helmeted pig lover?" Baird argued as Sam nudged him in the rib cage.

"You know you would jizz your pants if you saw a plate of freshly cut and cooked bacon Baird." Carmine retorted, something about his voice sounded extremely familiar to his brothers Anthony and Benjamin Carmine, both had died in the line of duty. Sometimes Marcus could swear they were talking through Clay.

"Right, right. Just like you when that sapper last night tried to unbuckle your pants? What was her name? Joe?" Baird fired back, his sarcasm back full swing.

"Remind me to skin you when we get back to base Baird."

"Enough." Marcus cut in and killed the mood with one word. "Next person who talks gets to train the new recruits through today's lecture. Chainsaw bayonet day."

That shut the two up quickly allowing Carmine and Marcus to proceed without interruption. They walked silently for about fifteen minutes before Carmine broke the silence.

"You doing alright Marcus?" he asked in his normal slightly upbeat and slightly grim tone.

"Great." Marcus replied.

"If you need a minute while we're here, just tell me. When I found out Tony and Ben had died I spent hours rereading their letters and looking at old pictures of the four of us."

"Drop it."

"Okay. Remind me to check on Duke when we get back. I haven't talked to him in a week."

The two were silent again, continuing along the stone paved path with random grass spurts popping through the pavement. Something was eerie about the small town. It was the clichéd too quite, not an insect buzzing or a bird chirping in the distance to off put the Gears need for high alert.

"Is it just me or does it seem a little quiet out here?" asked Carmine.

"Yeah, keep your eyes out. I don't think we're alone."

"Stranded?"

"Gotta be. Unless some new monster came out of the depths of the earth."

"Shit. You think we could handle another version of the Locust or the Lambent?"

"I don't know, if we all became bullet proof then yeah. Since we haven't, we'd probably go extinct if we had to pull some of the shit we did back during the war."

The two came up to a rubble filled road, the only way though was through a building that had a heavy chest of drawers propped against the entrance. Despite the two being bigger than most body builders both of them would have to pick it. Carmine and Marcus slung their Lancers onto the plate on their back and walked over to grip the chest of drawers.

Carmine bent down, his huge arms flexing and showing the two tattoos of his younger brothers immortalized forever on his biceps, and gripped the bottom of the piece of furniture. Marcus bent down with him and they counted out loud to three before grunting and picking the heavy wooden object up.

The two moved it forward four or five feet before putting it down. Carmine pretended to wipe sweat off of his helmeted forehead from the lifting.

"Shall we continue sir?" Carmine asked as he gestured towards the opening.

_Cut the sir shit, we ain't that polite out here._ Came the sound of young Benjamin Carmine's voice ringing through his head. "Let's go." he quickly said as he walked into the house, squeezing behind the chest of drawers, Carmine in tote behind him.

Marcus' stopped for a moment to observe the inside of the building. Making sure there were no traps waiting to be sprung. His gaze moved over to see Carmine pressing forward on a tripwire he had missed seeing.

"Carmine look out!" Marcus yelled as he ran towards him.

******  
Marcus had been gone for five minutes and that was about how long it had taken for Baird to narrowly avoid being punched in the face by Sam.

"Fucking ingrate." Sam spat at Baird as she placed her Lancer on her back and took out her Longshot sniper rifle. Peering through the scope to recon the plaza square before moving up into an area that could serve as a viable place for an ambush for whatever waited for them.

"Hey, I wasn't talking about your mother." Baird scowled, as he stood flush against the wall of the house they were occupying.

"You don't say that. Asswipe."

"Whatever, I'll just take a nap now and let you look." Baird told her as he pulled a chair up and put his feet up on an old table that looked like it was about to fall apart at any moment.

"No you won't. You're going out for a little lookie loo."

"Bitch please."

"Out, or I'll have Bernie punch you out when we get back."

"Fuck, she just punched me once. Never once did she actually punch me out."

Sam was quite as she turned and looked at him. Baird felt an urge to get out and look around like she had asked.

"Whatever, getting boring in here anyway." Baird told her as he pulled his Lancer off his back and left the room.

Walking down the stairs, which creaked underneath his twelve-pound boots, he muttered obscenities to himself that would have made Marcus pause for a moment. Opening the door, which ended up ripping it off the hinges from rot, he walked back out onto the street.

He stopped murmuring to himself and walked forward towards the dry as a bone fountain that made up the centerpiece of the plaza's once grand majesty. Towards his left he could have sworn he heard someone moving and talking in hushed whispers. Baird raised his Lancer and peered down the iron sight at where he thought the sound was coming from.

"Hey!" he yelled, about to say something that would register about a six on an asshole scale of one to ten. Pausing long enough to realize that he wasn't looking to get shot right now he reined it in. "Uh, if you guys come out then we'll accept your cooperation, or something like that. Fuck what should I say?" he said though he started to mumble at the last bit.

Baird heard the sound of a safety being flicked off. That meant it was time to hide.

"Shit!" he yelled as a hail of bullets came out and skittered all over the ground around him.

"And that's how I scored the last touchdown against the Sharks during the All Father's Bowl." Cole finished as he and Jace walked through the town.

"Yo, I remember watching that game. That was some cool shit." Jace responded as he ran a hand across his dreadlocked hair.

"Yeah, it was."

"Hey Cole?"

"Yeah big man?"

"How come we always seem to split up into pairs? Wouldn't it make more sense to stay together?"

"Big town and there's eight of us. Besides, not like we got grubs popping up at our feet no more."

"I guess, but still it would be nice to stick together."

"You talkin' about stickin' together for safety reasons or so that you can eye Anya?"

"Cole! Not cool man."

"It's alright, she's an attractive lady."

"She's Marcus' lady, if I hit on that Marcus would hang me with my small intestines."

"Damn right he would."

"Besides that's not who I even have my eye on."

"You want a little of that Alex Brand action? Shoot, you one brave kid."

"Yeah since the last time Baird pissed her off she nearly gave him a prostate exam with her Lancer, and not with the bullets."

There was a sound of clicking, like someone snapping a briefcase shut. A briefcase, no one had used a briefcase in years. That got Jace's attention. He put his hand out to stop Cole and shushed him.

"You hear that man?" he asked quietly.

"What?"

"Sounded like someone shutting something, quiet."

The two stood still for a moment before they heard what sounded like a latex glove slapping against skin, in that way doctors in horror movies did to freak everyone out.

There was no visible door to the building, an oddity of the highest degree. So Cole had to boost Jace onto a ledge that connected to a balcony. Jace gripped the ledge and managed to swing himself over to the balcony. Gripping the edge and pulling himself up in full gear was hard but Jace managed to do it. There was nothing he could do for Cole until he found a rope or a ladder of some sorts. The balcony was too far up for Jace to reach down and extend his hand out for Cole to reach up, maybe something was inside that he could use.

"I'll be right back, stay here." Jace whispered as he pulled his Gnasher shotgun off of his back and cocked it. Anything that came at him would leave a bloody mess after facing the wrong end of the barrel.

"Jace, be careful. If something goes fucked then you're on your own." Cole whispered to him.

Jace nodded before he slowly pushed the door open, voting for stealth instead of Delta's normal method of entry, kicking the door down and alerting everything within a fifty-foot radius to their location. Raising the shotgun to hip level he slowly made his way further into the house.

The house was abandoned, as so many others were, and had a rather haunted house vibe to it. Creaking floor panels, random whispers in the wall, the one painting whose eyes seem to follow you as you walked by it. Yet despite all of this, that wasn't what was scaring Jace. The air was cold, colder than it should have been for the pleasant seventy-degree weather outside. A sense of dread crept through him like an icy scalpel slowly cutting open each individual vein and filling them with ice.

Jace swallowed, his throat was dry. He kept his eyes forward knowing that he couldn't stop and take a quick swig from his canteen. If whatever was in here was as bad as he felt it was then it would strike when his guard was down. He approached a long hallway, one of those ones that you question why anyone needed a hallway as long as it was. Doors on each side, some in perfect condition, some broken off the hinges, some that had rotted away as if it was infested with some festering plague.

Jace's palms began to sweat; thankfully he had gloves on to help keep a grip on his shotgun. His heart felt like it was ripping through bone and skin to be loose from his chest. Reaching nearer to the end of the hallway he could have sworn that he heard screaming coming from behind the door. Jace was sweating bullets now, his heart seconds away from bursting through his chest like an alien. He reached the end of the hallway and slowly moved towards the door handle. Grabbing onto the door handle was like trying to grab a piece of dry ice, a burning cold that made him let go and jump back a few feet.

"Shit." was all Jace said as he contemplated pissing his pants and curling up in the fetal position.

Within him a spark of courage started to build. Jace focused on it, trying to build the courage into a fire, enough that he could get through this. Regripping his shotgun he ran up and kicked the door down to reveal what was on the other side.

The door fell back and landed on the ground a few feet from the doorframe. Jace looked in to see what had been giving him frights. In a normal wooden chair sat a person, not just any person but a Gear! He was decked out in the normal summer Gear armor, chest plating but no sleeves, with a helmet covering his face. He was bleeding from several places and was tied to the chair he had obviously been tortured. The Gear moaned to signify he was alive.

"Shit, I hope you're not a booby trap." Jace whispered as he walked over and untied him. Making sure he wouldn't trip any hidden traps that could kill him and the newfound Gear.

After untying the Gear Jace's curiosity was killing him. He had to know who this Gear was. Jace placed his hands on either side of the helmet and slowly pulled it off, revealing whom it was underneath.

"Shit! Ayers? Is that you man?" Jace said in utter shock. Ayers looked like shit, there was cuts and bruises all over his face. The most notable was a jagged cut in the shape of a lightning bolt that stretched from his left earlobe to the middle of his left cheek.

"Look out…" Ayers rasped out.


	2. Chapter 2

Jace's head was slammed forward into the chair; thankfully he had a hard head that was used to the abuse of being constantly slammed around into things. Jace kicked back and his foot struck what felt like solid concrete. It seemed to throw off his attacker long enough to roll over to the side and pull out his Boltok pistol from his holster and turn around to aim it at his attacker.

What Jace saw confused him: whatever it was wasn't human. It looked similar to a human male, if they were as big and as muscled as a Boomer. It was clad in a pre-war, silk, pinstriped suit: it looked brand new. Something like that would have to be at least seventeen years old. Yet it looked like he had picked it up from the store yesterday. His eyes were covered with turtle shell sunglasses, Jace could barely make out pure black eyes before the thing pushed his glasses back up to fully cover his eyes.

Jace didn't have to figure out this was no friendly, he pulled the trigger and the bullet shot forward and embedded itself in the thing's upper right arm. Jace was startled: as the bullet embedded itself in the top layer of skin of his attacker.

"Shit." Jace said as he rolled backwards again and pulled his Lancer off his back. Hopefully if he could get close enough he could chainsaw a limb off of him.

"Submit and stand by for analytical testing." It rumbled in a voice that could break concrete.

"Fuck that." Jace said as he lined up his sights and shot off a small burst of rounds at the thing. Hoping that maybe some Lancer rounds would slow it down.

"Target is hostile. Beginning submission protocols." the thing rumbled as it charged forward like a very graceful berserker.

Jace rolled out of the way and the thing slammed into a wall. It was phased for a few moments giving Jace enough time to escape.

Running over to Ayers Jace picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. The thing had gotten its bearings once again and tore off towards Jace. Jace ran, slowed down by the extra weight on his shoulder but that didn't stop him from tearing down the hallway, the long hallway.

He felt the fear settling in once again as he sprinted through the hallway. Whatever it was made no sense, he already had something chasing him and it wasn't scary beyond it could tear his arms and legs off and then beat him to death with them.

"Can't fight it…"Ayers moaned out. "Run…"

"Hang on Ayers, I'll figure out somethin'." Jace responded as he began to thumb for a grenade.

Grabbing a frag grenade off of his belt Jace primed it and slammed it onto the doorway that led to the balcony. A few seconds later there was an explosion and the ceiling began to collapse behind them.

_Damn, I was hoping to seal the door behind me. How the fuck did I bring the whole goddamn ceiling down on me?_ Jace wondered as he ran towards the balcony.

_"Damn baby, what the hell did you do?"_ Cole crackled over Jace's TAC/COM.

"Big guy chasing me. Jumping over balcony. See you in three." Jace yelled as fast as he could as the ceiling and building began to crash behind him.

The balcony was a few feet away, Jace reached deep in the tank for that last little burst and sprinted a little more. He reached the edge and hurdled over it as the house collapsed behind him. Jace tucked and landed hard on his side, his ribs making a sickening cracking sound. Pain shot up to his side as he screamed out, it felt like a hot poking iron had been shoved into his side. He groaned as he rolled over onto his back to try and relieve some of the pain.

"Oh shit son! Didn't anyone tell you a little goes a long way?" Cole yelled as he ran over to Jace.

"Fuck! My ribs!" Jace moaned out as he looked around for Ayers. "Cole, where's Ayers?"

"Brett? Shit, did you find him?"

"Just look!"

"Okay, okay." Cole told him as he looked around. Ayers had rolled over and was lying on the ground a few feet away from Jace. "Shit Brett, what the fuck happened to you?" Cole murmured as he looked over all the cuts and scars he had had accumulated.

_"Cole? Was that explosion you?"_ Anya's voice came over his TAC/COM.

Cole put two fingers on the button so he could reply to Anya. "Nah, that was Jace. For some reason the building needed to go boom-boom."

_"Do you need assistance?"_ Anya asked in her cool, collected tone. Something that would go away when Cole told her that Jace was lying on the ground with broken ribs.

"Yeah, we do. Jace got hurt jumping out of the broken building and we also found Brett Ayers."

_"Wait, you were in the building when it was blowing up?"_

"Nope, Jace was the mastermind behind that one."

_"Stay put. We'll regroup in five."_

"Aight, over and out."

Cole looked over and then went over to Jace. Helping he leaned him against a nearby wall.

"Hang on now big man, just need to see if your ribs are broken or if you just have a nasty bruise." Cole told him as he crouched down next to him.

"Okay." Jace grunted out.

"Alright now let me run my hand over your ribs, make sure nothing came loose." Cole told him as his hand ran up Jace's rib cage. Jace cringed but Cole didn't feel any major fractures. Just some light swelling for now that would blow up bigger later.

"I don't think they're broken, but Anya will make sure once she gets here." Cole told him as he walked over to Ayers to check on him.

Picking Ayers up, Cole carried him over and placed him next to Jace. Ayers was barely breathing, he needed medical help and soon. Looking at the man who had been missing since Hollow Storm would attract some attention at his differing appearance. This new Ayers had hair that was a fourth on an inch long, old Ayers always had a nice full head of black hair that he always managed to look stylized even if it wasn't feasible for him to do so. Ayers always had a boyish face that sparkled with enthusiasm and wonder, now his face was gaunt and lean. He had a look of hopelessness that most Stranded seemed to have.

There was a sound of moving rubble behind Cole. Cole grabbed his Lancer and turned around, waiting for whatever was coming to show itself. Everything fell silent again, Cole was getting nervous. The sound of footsteps was nearing and Cole tightly gripped his Lancer ready to shoot whoever threatened him.

"Cole?" came Alex's voice from beside him.

Cole lowered his Lancer and turned around to face Anya and Alex. Anya ran over to Jace and began giving him basic first aid to make sure that he was fine.

"What were you doing just then?" Alex asked as she walked over to him, flipping a piece of red hair back into place.

"Some creepy crawly movin' about in the rubble. Thought I heard it move." Cole replied simply as he turned towards Jace.

"You didn't see it, ugh." Jace moaned out as Anya continued to fix him up. "Damn thing was as big as a boomer and tough as a berserker. I shot it with a round from my revolver and the bullet just stopped when it hit its skin."

"I'm sure you did Jace," Alex commented as she gave him her 'I'm totally shitting you right now grin'. "I bet it was a scary monster that's gonna pop out from under your bed tonight as you go to sleep."

Jace responded by raising his left hand and extending his middle finger. He turned back to Anya. "Jesus Anya, it's not that bad. Worry about Ayers, he's the one that looks like hell." Jace told her as he put his hand on her chest plate and pushed her away and began to try to stand.

Something began to shake from the rubble of the destroyed house. Jace hooked his foot around his Lancer and kicked it up into his hands so he could avoid bending over for right now. A big hand shot up from the rock and mortar and clawed its way to the surface.

"What the fuck is that!?" Cole yelled as he pointed his Lancer at the monstrosity.

The thing had mutated and it was much bigger now. About as tall and twice as muscled a berserker. All over its body were spikes of different lengths. It roared before looking at the Gears with an analytical gaze.

"New specimens, female and male. Capture and contain." it spoke in its voice that shook brick and mortar.

"Shit." Jace said as he revved his chainsaw bayonet.

*******  
Baird was being shot at. When he woke up this morning that was actually a possibility. He was ducked inside of a fountain, the marble blocking the bullets that were flying all around him. He pressed two fingers into his TAC/COM to open the channel.

"Sam! Need assistance!" Baird yelled as he tried to see where he had dropped his Lancer. He had dropped it when the bullets first started flying and one had pinged off his gun shooting it out of his hand. This is what he got for bringing his tool kit instead of his back up Hammerburst.

"Bloody hell you bludger! I'm trying!" Sam yelled as she took a shot at what she thought was someone with a gun.

"Fuck Sam, just spray them with Lancer bullets and let me grab my gun!"

"You dropped your gun? Dipstick."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the bane of everyone's existence and all that, can you cover me for thirty seconds?"

"If you don't get shot."

"Har, har. Bitch."

Baird peeked up over the edge of the fountain and found his Lancer. It was at least a good twenty feet from his current location. "Fuck my life." Baird whispered as he rolled his shoulders to loosen up.

"I'm making a run for it in five seconds. Get ready." he told Sam.

"Okay Blondie."

He counted to three and then hurled the fountain. Dropping he began to roadie run to keep himself low. Bullets flying around him, one or two pinging off his giant metal armor. He reached his hand out and grabbed his Lancer before somersaulting behind a wall and crouching down.

"You went two seconds early! No-Hoper!" Sam yelled at him as she fired a Longshot round through the head of one of their attackers.

"It was two seconds after I said five seconds. Plus the three I waited."

"Fuck off you goddamn piker!"

"You really dig into the bag of Kashkuri slang when you're pissed don't you?"

"Just for you sweetie."

"Wow, now I know I'm really in trouble." Baird responded as he fired a few rounds into what he thought was the chest area of his attacker. The attacker shrugged the bullets off like they were nothing and kept firing their gun at Baird.

"Shit! They're armored on their chests!" Baird yelled as he fired a few more potshots off at some various other people.

The sound of two other Lancers joined the battle; Baird paused at this new noise. The sounds of their attackers guns hadn't sounded like Lancers, but some hybrid of a Hammerburst and a Lancer spliced together.

The sound of a chainsaw revving caused Baird to spring into action. He yanked the lever to rev his chainsaw and brought it up to defend himself. One of his attackers brought a chainsaw bayonet down on him Baird brought his up and the two slammed together in a cacophony of metal grinding and screeching on metal. Baird locked eyes with his attacker: it was a young kid, about as old as Jace. His eyes were filled with hate as he tried to bring the chainsaw bayonet into Baird's exposed neck.

Baird didn't want to kill him but he didn't want to die either. Kicking out at the kids kneecap, his dueler dropped his guard: causing Baird's chainsaw bayonet swung down and dug into his neck. Cutting through flesh, muscle, and sinew and shooting out what felt like gallons of blood. Baird screamed in a war cry as blood shot up in the air and rained all around him. After what felt like hours the kid fell backwards onto the ground.

Baird groaned, he was covered in bits of flesh and ten shit tons of blood. He turned around to see Marcus and Carmine walking towards them. Baird spit some blood out and tried to wipe off some of the red liquid off of his face.

"Where you assholes been?" he asked with a little more spite in his voice.

"Carmine tripped a wire and we got caught up in a big sack. Tell ya later." Marcus grumbled without quite grumbling.

"Yeah, can we forget that happened? I'm going to have nightmares for weeks now." Carmine tacked on.

"Whatever." Marcus said as he turned around to look at the corpse that Baird had mutilated. Initial glances told him that it wasn't Stranded. The armor was too uniform and maintained.

The corpse had pitch-black armor that looked like it had been ripped off of a Gear's corpse. But this one was new, which couldn't be possible, nothing new had been made on Sera for a little over a decade. Everything was maintained, attempting to keep pieces of shit running for as long as possible.

"Baird, is that new?" Sam asked as she waltzed over.

"Yeah, still has that new armor smell. With a hint of copper undertone."

"Baird…" Marcus growled.

"Fine, fine." Baird said as he held his hands up and bent down to take a look at it. "No rusting, no patchwork. Looks new. Wait a minute." Baird stopped as he checked under the collar for something. "No serial number. Every piece of equipment has a serial number on it, even shit made after E-Day."

"So that mean?" Carmine asked, urging him to get to the point.

"Someone out there has resources and a functioning factory, and they're gearing up for war."

**Thanks to all the reviewers! Here is a new chapter, sorry if it feels like I haven't gone anywhere. Stuff will be building up. When we return we will see what happened to Delta Two while Delta One ponders their new mystery. See ya next time guys!**


	3. Chapter 3

Cole flew through the air and smashed through a brick wall. Having been backhanded by the thing that had emerged from the rubble of the ruined house. Bullet so far had proved fruitless but still Anya and Jace unloaded an entire Lancer clip into it trying to slow it down.

"We gotta take ugly out before he rips us all to shreds!" Cole yelled as he stood up and shot another burst of Lancer bullets into the back of their attacker.

The thing was a beast, ripping the ground apart with mighty blows from its large hands. It would attempt to body slam into one of the Gears with its spiky body. For something that was attempting to contain them, it was doing a piss poor job.

Alex was right behind it, her Lancer in hand. She pulled the lever and charged it, bringing the chainsaw down onto its left arm. The chainsaw began to slowly cut through its thick skin causing lime green blood to come spurting out.

"Whoooo!" Cole yelped as he revved his chainsaw up. "If we can cut it, we can kill it!"

"Keep your distance everyone, it's still dangerous." Anya warned as she rolled out of its way as it attempted to charge her.

"Rip the bastard in half!" Jace roared as he somersaulted behind the thing and finished cutting off its left arm.

"Jace be careful!" Anya yelled, in the control room she was always calm. Out of the battlefield she always adopted a little motherly instinct towards the younger members of the squads she was a part of.

Jace barely ducked a wild swing by the beast. "Shit!" he yelled as he backed up and fired at the bloody stump.

The beast roared in pain as the bullets hit his open wound. It slowed for a moment as it bellowed and howled.

"Someone get a grenade in that stump!" Alex yelled as she tried to distract it with a volley of bullets from her Lancer.

"Let's go baby!" Cole shouted as he stuck his rifle onto the magnetic plate on his back and grabbed a grenade from his belt. He let out a loud whoop before running forward towards the beast.

Jace grimaced, if Baird was here he would be cussing Cole out for charging in headfirst. For now he swallowed his fear and tried to focus on fighting the beast and ignoring the pain in his ribs.

Cole charged forward, ducking a wild swipe from the beast. It was getting tired and frustrated. Which meant it was going to make a mistake. Cole capitalized on this and pulled the pin on the grenade. He slammed it into the bloody stump of the beast and rolled backwards, praying he was out of the blast radius.

There was a repressed bang followed by a wail of pain. The beast had lost most of the left side of its body, yet it still stood tall as if it had been simply hit by a fly. There it was, ribs exposed, blood pouring out like a garden hose, anything else would have died by this point.

"We need the hammer of dawn!" Jace yelled and looked to Anya. As the senior officer of the eight she was responsible for the sensor that would drop a stream of power like a hammer from the gods. Jace had been curious as to why Hoffman had just given it to her before the mission briefing, there was no need for that much fire power on a scouting mission.

"We need to get clear, we might not even have satellite coverage and could hit us!" Anya yelled as she covered Cole as he ran over to pick Ayers up.

"Nothing else is going to take this fucker down!" Alex yelled as she fired at the beast.

"We need to get clear!" Jace yelled as he turned and started to run with the other Gears.

The beast sensed them leaving and roared as it charged after them. It came at them like a bat out of hell.

"Jace, you and Cole get clear, Alex with me!" Anya commanded as she turned around to draw the beast's attention by shooting at it some more.

"Yes ma'am!" Alex boomed as she ran over to join Anya, excited to kick some ass.

Once Jace and Cole were clear Anya and Alex took off towards a ramp that led to a rooftop. They fired their guns and screamed at the beast to lure it towards them. Running up the ramp they stood on top of the roof the beast in hot pursuit behind them. The two ran towards the ledge, the beast sped up. Right before it could grab them the two jerked to the right and left respectfully and watched as the beast ran off the roof of the building.

Anya wasted no time in pulling the targeter out and ran over to the edge and aimed the beam at the beast. It beeped several times letting Anya know that a satellite was in range.

"Get down!" she yelled as a stream of fire fell from the heavens and struck the beast like a hammer from the dawn.

##########

Carmine and Sam stood around waiting for Marcus to finish calling Command while Baird muttered to himself about the new guns and weapons they had found. Sam watched as Carmine passed the time by doing sit-ups and pushups. Something she found ironic since he was already huge, or huge compared to D-ke who still was rather large but Clay made him look small.

"Burning off the extra energy?" Sam asked.

"Yeah." Carmine responded, one-word answers normally weren't his forte, he could talk for hours off of the question 'how was your day going'?

"Not feeling talkative today Carmine?" Sam asked him as he grunted and kept crunching.

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Why you asking?"

"Oh come on, what happened to that wonderfully humored young man who escorted me to the Gears Ball last week?"

"Last week wasn't Ben's birthday. Nor was last week two-fifty, exactly when he entered this god forsaken world."

Sam paused for a moment before looking back at Clay. She cleared her throat before trying to steer the conversation into a different vein of topic. "So, what do you think of that thing we found? The new armor?"

"Obviously we're going to be out to fight again. We're giving up our lives as fill in farmers, police officers, whatever we were supposed to be in order to make shit run again. They ain't friendly, they ain't here for the common good, and they most fucking surely ain't here to combine forces. They're here to kill the men, rape the women, and then convert the children. We're going back to fighting the Stranded all over again just like we did on Vectes because we're fucked."

"Bit pessimistic aren't you. Starting to sound like blondie over there."

"Hey, Carmine's got a point. They didn't even bother asking us to surrender or even want to talk. They just opened fire on us. They must have some serious firepower if this is any indication." Baird said as he stood up and pointed to the barrel of the gun he had been observing for the last fifteen minutes. "Look at the size of the barrel, it's about the size of the Hammerburst, you know the second one the one that wasn't burst fire god how I miss that first one, anyway it's fires Hammerburst caliber rounds while being attached to a Lancer body. Giving it accuracy, firepower, and a chainsaw bayonet. We have the accuracy and a chainsaw bayonet, but not the firepower. However it has only thirty rounds and it seems to eject ammo quickly. That being said we do have an advantage with our sixty round clips and…" Baird was cut off as he had to dodge a rock Carmine threw at him.

"Fucking can it Baird." Carmine growled as he went back to doing crunches.

"Nobody appreciates me." Baird moaned as he went over and started to strip the armor off of one of the corpses.

"Mount up Delta. Raven approaching for extraction in five minutes, they apparently were coming to end the recon." Marcus told them as he turned to Baird. "Hurry it up Baird, we're leaving in five."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then we go home and dance naked, got it!" Baird cracked sarcastically as he pulled each piece of armor off carefully and placed it into a bag that he had stored in his tool kit for new tech he found out on the field of battle.

_"Come in Delta. KR 4 inbound." _a familiar voice crackled over their TAC/COMs.

"Duke? That you little bro?" Carmine asked as his tone picked up a little.

_"Yes sir. Decided to get off the island for a bit, can't let you have all the fun can I?" _

"Whatever, just be expecting a big hug from your big brother." Carmine told him with a mischievous smile you could see through his helmet.

_"Ha, ha, can't wait."_

Carmine cracked his knuckles and watched as he saw the helicopter draw nearer to them. He waved both arms into the air, glad to see his little brother for the first time in a week. Suddenly a giant laser fell from the sky, smashing into a building and sending rubble crashing into the King Raven. The Helicopter swerved as it started to crash towards the ground.

_"Mayday! Mayday! KR 4 is going down! Clear the area!" _Duke's voice came screaming over their TAC/COM as it smashed into the ground a few blocks over.

"DUKE!" Carmine screamed as he tore off towards the downed helicopter. He reached the crash site minutes later to see the helicopter burning. Carmine crashed to his knees, tore his helmet off and threw it to the side before pounding his hands into the ground as tears spilled from his eyes. "NOOOOOOO!" he screamed as the fire continued to crackle and burn the helicopter.

###########

**Sorry this chapter is shorter than the others. Anyway time to introduce Duke Carmine and then rip him away from you guys. Why? Because I am a bastard like that. Anyway Clay needs to be on his own and can't be worrying about his brothers right? I mean all the Carmines are supposed to be dead right? I mean Duke totally died in the crash...right?**


	4. Chapter 4

Carmine stood on his knees, maybe there was still time to pull him out! Maybe Duke hadn't gotten burned yet! Carmine got up to run to the burning helicopter when he felt two sets of strong arms wrapped around him. He tried to shove them off of him.

"Fucking get off of me! He's still okay! Let me just get him out of there!" Carmine yelled as he pushed, twisted, and writhed out of his captors grip.

"He's gone Carmine!" Marcus yelled as he felt a ping of sorrow build up in him again. There went another, just like Dom.

"No! He can't be dead! He can't be! He's all I have left! I was supposed to keep him safe like I promised! Get the fuck off of me!"

Marcus and Baird just held Carmine as he ran out of animalistic rage and descended into a broken down wreck. Sobbing heavily as Sam came around tried to cheer him up.

"It's okay Carmine, you couldn't have done anything," she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck, he leaned forward and started to cry into her chest plate.

"Fuck! He can't be gone!" Carmine yelled in between great big sobs.

The group was silent for a bit before Marcus peeled off to call for another raven. Baird eventually left to keep watch; this day couldn't have gotten any worse for Carmine. But nothing would be the same again, no family left for him to go home to. Nothing but the hollow memories left behind in their wake.

_"Could one of you help me get this rubble off of me? I'm actually ten feet from you." _Duke crackled over their TAC/COM.

Carmine looked around and saw a hand waving from some building rubble. He ran over and began to throw pieces of rock off of his baby brother. Eventually he found his helmet and started to clear more rock off of him. There he was, there was Duke. Carmine grabbed him and held him so tight he could have smothered him to death, but he didn't. His little brother was alive.

"Don't fucking ever do that to me again." Carmine told Duke as Marcus handed him his helmet. Carmine accepted it and put it on one handed while he helped Duke up onto his feet.

"I'm fine bro. I was thrown out of the helicopter when the rubble hit the rotor. It chucked me out and then I was covered in rubble. Got knocked out for a few minutes or else I would have called sooner. No idea how I survived that."  
"Same way I survived nearly being hit by a car, shot in the helmet, and then three gunker attacks back at Hanover. Sheer dumb luck." Clay responded as he picked up Duke's Lancer and handed it to him.

"Okay numbskulls next question. Why the fuck was there a hammer of dawn strike? Anya has the sensor but she wouldn't use it unless shit really was going down." Baird piped in ruining the moment.

"We better get over there stat. Let's move Delta." Marcus ordered as the five-man squad ran towards the hammer of dawn strike area.

######

Anya groaned as she tried to lean forward. The explosion had thrown her back ten feet into a wall and she had cracked her head against the hard concrete. Nothing seemed broken so she was glad for that.

"_Anya, come in."_ she heard Marcus' voice over the TAC/COM. He no doubt was worried sick right now.

"Here Marcus, everything's fine." She responded as she looked around for Alex who had also been knocked out from the force of the hammer strike.

"_No it's not. The hammer of dawn took out our ride and nearly killed Duke and shit is really starting to go down here. So there better be a damn good reason for using it." _

Anya might have looked like a child next to Marcus but that didn't mean that she would back down when Marcus started to get pissed at her.

"Listen to me you big lug," Anya told him with irritation heavy in her voice as she stood up and looked around for him, he would no doubt be getting close. "We had a beast bigger than a berserker that didn't go down when we blew half of its body off with a grenade." Anya sighed and kicked a rock, Marcus had a point, she should have gotten further away. "Is Duke okay?"

_"Fine Anya. Reduced Clay to a big pile of tears, worth being dead for five minutes." _Duke piped in over the line.

_"Shut up Duke. Noogie time!"_ Clay hollered over the TAC/COM.

"_Hey! Hey! Stop it…" _Duke began to yell before he was cut off.

_"Hey Anya Sam here. Just want to let you know that Marcus is sorry for acting like an ass, Clay is brutally manhandling Duke, and Baird is wanking off in the corner. We should be at the rendezvous site in ten. See ya then honey." _

"Roger, over and out." Anya finished as she shouldered her Lancer and walked over to Alex who had groggily stood up with a hand on her head. There was a long cut on her head and she was staggering around, obviously she had hit her head pretty hard when the hammer hit and threw her backwards.

Alex stopped for a second and went over to the side of the building before retching her breakfast onto the sidewalk. She was in bad condition and needed a hospital, stat.

Anya ran over and grabbed her before she collapsed onto the ground. Alex had a terrible concussion, one that would need immediate treatment or else she could die if her brain swelled.

"Hang on Brand, we'll get there in one piece." Anya whispered as she drug the barely conscious girl along beside her.

######  
Jace and Cole slowed down as they reached the meet up point. The hammer of dawn had fired moments after they had gotten clear of the blast zone; they'd narrowly avoided being incinerated in the blast radius.

"Shit!" Jace hollered as they stopped running, they'd continued running for at least twenty minutes past the hammer strike just to make sure that the beast hadn't shrugged off that blast and ran behind him to rip them a new one.

"You damn right!" Cole yelled as he slowed to a light jog and then finally stopped. Cole walked over to a bench and placed Ayers down on it gently. Over the horizon a King Raven traveled towards them with powerful strokes of its propellers. Cole put a hand above his eyes to get the sun out of his eyes. "Our ride's here!" Cole whooped as he pressed two fingers to his coms device. "I don't know where the rest of you are but it seems our ride is inbound!"

Cole was so excited he almost didn't notice the heavy oak briefcase that his boot nudged against. Normally this wouldn't have made him look; he bumped against things all the time. But this time he looked down to see the oddity, ignoring any response from the other members of the team.

It was a normal briefcase made of fine leather, the type of leather it would take a year worth of paychecks to buy, with golden padded handles, and a number lock. Cole picked it up and experimentally tried to click it open. It wouldn't open, Cole tried to flick the numbers around but the numbers wouldn't budge. There was nothing wrong with the number lock: it must have been there for decoration.

The Raven landed and it jolted Cole back to alert status. Holding onto the briefcase he went over and picked Ayers up and helped him onto the helicopter, laying him down on a seat and strapping him in so he wouldn't jostle around so much and potentially make his state worse than it already was.

"Where's the rest of your squad solider?" the Raven pilot yelled over the rotors.

"They'll be here in five to ten minutes!" Jace yelled back.

"Tell 'em to hurry up! Immulsion doesn't work as well after that big bang few months back!"

"They'll be here!" Jace shouted before shutting one of the doors and then leaning against the new wall. Jace looked over at Cole, noting the briefcase that Cole was just carrying around. Jace pointed at the briefcase. "What's that?" he asked as he walked over to look at it.

"I don't know, figured Baird would want to have a look at it when we get back. Just felt like bringin' it back."

Jace felt the chill come back for a moment before he shifted thoughts. Now they would be going back to Azura where he could get some rest and forget about monsters coming out of the dark. That put a smile on his face as he noticed the remaining six members of the squad come over a hill and towards the King Raven. He waved towards them, time to go home.

**######**

**Yeah I know I didn't actually kill Duke and stretched it. Whatever. I felt like the Carmines will end up in a lot of near death situations that most people will end up just staring at them for surviving it. Next they will be back at Azura and things will really start rolling, the briefcase and everything that will lead to one portion of the story with initials of S.S. Keep up and see ya next time.**


	5. Chapter 5

The King Raven whirled as it landed in front of the hospital. Anya and Cole ran in with the wounded that they had acquired during the course of the mission. Clay hopped off the Raven and walked over to the new version of the Rusty Nail that had been built on Azura. It helped people with a sense of familiarity that was ever so exceedingly rare these days.

The few people who had been trying to grab a bite to eat or a quick drink before heading back to their new lives on the facility site greeted him as he pushed open the doors crafted like an old saloon from the fictional cowboy movies that had been popular when he was little. He walked up to the bar, heavy boots thudding on the hardwood floor, and pulled out a barstool to sit down on.

Sam Malone* the bartender stood while he wiped the bar down with a rag that looked as greasy as his hamburgers. Sam stood at around six feet tall; he was a lean man, someone who looked like he ate maybe once a day. He had hair that would have been outdated ten years ago if it had been worn by anyone else, one of those hairdos that was poofy that had been popular twenty to thirty years ago. His appearance would make one guess he was in his late twenties to early thirties when in fact he was closer to fifty.

"The usual Clay?" Sam asked as he pulled out a bottle of rum.

"Make it a double." Clay told him as he pulled his helmet off and placed it off to the side of him.

"Bad day?"

"Not a great one so far."

"I hear ya." Sam told him as he placed Clay's rum in front of him. Clay took the glass and took a sip of the vanilla flavored liquid. After taking a sip his face scrunched up, he never could quite get over the kick of rum even if he liked the flavor.

"God how I miss Mr. Salt for a chaser." Clay told him as he took another sip and made his rum face again.

"Yeah, we have water or water for a chaser now."

"I'll pass."

The doors to the bar opened behind Clay, the sound of heavy Gear boots thudded over the ground. However Clay didn't need to turn to see who it was before the few members of the bar all chanted, '_Dizzy!'_

"Howdy y'all!" Dizzy roared in his thick southern accent. He walked over to the bar and sat down next to Clay. Dizzy looked at Sam and gave him a quick nod. "So, got my moonshine Sam? Made it real smooth for me and everyone else."

"Dizzy I don't know how you drink that stuff, it would kill almost anyone else." Clay told him as he took another sip of his rum.

"Don't know son, guess my liver just doesn't want to quit out on me. Drinkin' rum I see?" Dizzy asked him with a smile.

"Yeah, drink of choice. How you doing Dizzy?"

"Been a rough day, had to drop the twins off at B.T."

"Wait, they're becoming Gears?"

"Yep, believe me I tried talking them out of it. But like their ma, their head is thicker as a bull's noggin. Once they set their minds to doin' somethin' they do it."

"Did you pull the I fought so you don't have to card?"

"Ya darn right I did."

"Damn. Hope they do all right, I mean they're a little quiet. I've never seen anyone who confused us on who we were supposed to sing happy birthday to."

"I know, seemed just yesterday they were being born…then I was fighting off Locust with a hunting rifle. Sheeeit, I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

"Hey, no one is good with guns on their first go around."

"Well hurry on up, we gots to go in an hour."  
"What?"

"What you didn't hear? You, Duke, Baird, that new girl, and me are headin' out to a vehicle graveyard scouts found out west. We're goin' in and see if we can't find ourselves a few new beautiful ladies to give us all a ride here and there."

"Why me? I'm not a mechanic guy."

"I'll give ya the whole rundown, Duke has been hangin' around Baird more and picked up a little about machines, the new girl is fresh out of Baird's engineering class, and well ya know how smooth I am with the women folk. You come in handy in case somethin' goes bump and gives us all a little fright."

"So I'm a watch dog."

"Little bit. Come one let's finish that up so we can meet up."

"Fuck, fine." Clay grumbled as he finished the rest of his rum and got up to follow Dizzy.

"Buck up, we'll find ya a nice motorcycle and once you hear her purring you won't wait to get on top and give 'er a little ride." Dizzy told Clay as he patted him on his armored back.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Clay told him as he walked out of the bar to the new command center. Today was going to go shitter than a dog after he was neutered.

#####  
Baird walked into his workshop, it was the last place people knew not to bug him, even if it was the first place everyone knew to look if they needed him. When they had landed Cole had given him the briefcase and Baird had been curious, Cole knew exactly what started turning his mental gears.

He placed the briefcase on his workbench and then started to fiddle around with the lock. He tried picking it, reworking the lock, and even tried blow torching it open. Didn't even pucker the leather lining.

This was starting to piss Baird off, he tried hitting it with a wrench, followed by hammers that slowly started to get bigger for every hit that didn't work, and for giggles he even tried cutting it open with his Lancer bayonet. Nothing worked.

Baird had wasted half an hour and was about to give up and grab some food before he noticed something on the end of the suitcase. Baird turned the briefcase around and looked at it, it was a small square that was about three inches long and two inches wide. It appeared to be a piece of tape that was about to come off from all the punishment that Baird had inflicted upon the briefcase. Baird looked carefully at first to make sure he wouldn't rip anything if he removed the tape, observing it revealed nothing that was weakened, he slowly began to peel the tape back. His hand was sweating with nervous tension, if he screwed this up the briefcase might not open because he botched the only way to open it.

After peeling the rest of it off the briefcase he looked at the spot where the tape used to be: nothing was there. Baird fumed, his only shot had gone down the crapper. He went to throw the piece of tape away it was useless now. Right before he did though something caught his eye. Flipping the tape over he saw something written on the piece of tape: it was a name, Natasha.

"Natasha?" Baird said out loud in confusion. As soon as the last syllable left his mouth the lock on the briefcase opened with a click behind him. Baird turned around and walked back over to the briefcase, placing the tape on the edge of the table. Baird pulled up his stool for when he was cooped up fixing a busted engine or something that required him to attend to for longer than an hour.

Baird opened the briefcase fully and found a bunch of file folders; some of them had words such as benign, harmful, dangerous, and malignant. Baird picked up a folder marked dangerous in curiosity. He flipped open the first page to see a picture of something he hadn't seen in several months, a picture of a Locust. Baird turned his workbench light on and bent over the folder and began to read.

_The Locust are an anthropomorphic race that resulted as a consequence to the gold rush during the beginning years of the Immulsion Conflict that would later lead to mutations resulting in the birth of Sires (see file 22D). Despite knowledge of their origins not much data was recorded until Probe 19D-23 discovered the Locust Horde at what later is noted to be the apex of their maturity as a species. _

_ Five years before the event known as "E-Day" Probe 19D-23 had detoured around a cave in restricting access to a new species later found out to be a large non-anthropod invertebrate animal made of rock. Probe 19D-23 came across a building that has later speculated to be a building of worship headed by beings known as Kantus (see file 30E). The Kantus was hostile towards the probe once it had been discovered and discharged what appeared to be a burst-fire pistol, narrowly missing Probe 19D-23. _

_Right, cause back then the Locust still had those burst fire Gorgon pistols._ Baird thought as he flipped the page.

_The Kantus appeared to lead the Locust in their strange worship rituals. Probe 19D-23 was sent further into the Hollow and continued its observation. Several weeks passed by with nothing of note beyond initial discoveries of Locust culture (see addendum 19-E), however three weeks, two days, four hours, and twenty-seven minutes after initial contact a new species was introduced to Sera: The Lambent (see file 50A). A Drone (see file 30B) accidentally walking in Immulsion mutated, causing it to become aggressive towards everything including its own species. The Locust took it upon them to fire and kill the Lambent Drone causing it to combust upon death. In the weeks that followed more Lambent started to emerge causing the event later referred to as the Locust Civil War. _

_ Shit! These guys were there for the Lambent emergence. Who the fuck are these people? _Baird pondered as he continued to study the folder.

_The Locust would begin a war in which they were steadily losing. It seems almost reasonable, the foundation of the Lambent army were made up of Locust that had been mutated due to exposure to Immulsion. The infection rate seemed higher than the Locust could repopulate or kill the Lambent. _

_ Six weeks after the end of the conflict known to the humans as "the Pendulum War" (see file 4A) the Locust emerged from the Hollow in an attempt to rid the surface of the human race in an attempt to separate themselves from the Lambent. _

_ However humanity was not willing to go down without creating conflict against the Locust. At first humanity attempted to match the Locust in strength, but this proved futile as human casualties began to rise higher and higher. Humanity left strength behind to resort to a tactic, which it would continue to use until the detonation of Scientist Adam Fenix (see file 6C) cleansing wave, known as desperation. Chairman Prescott, Adam Fenix, and Colonel Hoffman agreed to use the Weapon of Mass Destruction known as "the Hammer of Dawn" to destroy all cities held by the Locust in a last second scorched sera tactic. As a result 90% of the planet burned causing numerous casualties for the facility, humanity, and Locust kind. This action resulted in a separate faction known as the Stranded (see file 8-D), which would…_

"Blah, blah, blah," Baird said as he flipped through the folder, "is there anything in here I wasn't already there for?"

Baird flipped through the folder, not finding anything new he put the folder off to the side and picked a new folder marked harmful and was about to open it before he heard Hoffman's voice yelling at him over his TAC/COM.

"Baird!" Hoffman's signature yell/talk came over the comm piece.

"Ah, Jesus!" Baird screamed before falling backwards on his stool. Narrowly avoiding smacking his head on an APC that he had been saving off to the side when he needed to calm down from a long day of dealing with assholes. "Okay now that I narrowly avoided a concussion what do you want?"

"You were to report for briefing ten minutes ago! Where the hell are you son?"

"Busy in the workshop, fixing the APC." Baird responded with a little white lie.

"Get down to Command now!"

"Fine, fine, whatever old man try not to have an aneurism and die on us." Baird sniped back as he grabbed his Lancer and left his workshop, making sure to lock everything up tight so no one could look at the files before he came back. Once locked up Baird left to go to Command, grumbling at how he hated being interrupted in the middle of things.

#####

Duke stood outside command waiting on Clay, Baird, and Dizzy. Clay had always been known for showing up late, timely arrivals having not been handed on to him like Duke. Duke had always been one to arrive early to a party he was invited to and then help set up. This is what caused him to be promoted to lieutenant a year or so into his service and lead his own squad. However while Duke was better with people, Clay had good enough social skills and the bloodlust that made him the cool older brother. It caused Anthony to follow his older brother around like a puppy dog when he was little. Benjamin had always been a little closer to Duke however, mostly because he wasn't as intimidating as Clay. Clay was the starting Thrashball player, Duke in comparison would be the one play for his club team at college.

Despite all their differences all four brothers were as close as a family could be. The time Benjamin came home with a black eye Anthony, Clay, and him went out and duct taped the bully to the flagpole and warned him what would happen the next time he touched their little brother.

"Duke, get out of memory lane and rejoin the rest of us." Clay told him as he and Dizzy walked up towards him.

"Hey brother, do I smell rum?" Duke asked as he sniffed the air.

"Not if you know what's good for you." Clay joked with him as he patted him on the shoulder. "How you doing little bro?"

"Pretty good, little jumbled from falling out of a helicopter. But other than that ready to go, if we find an old Matzoom off roader I'm calling dibs." Duke told him as his secret passion for cars started to bubble out.

"I know, I remember how much you begged ma and pa to get you one for your sixteenth. Everyone else wanted a nice expensive car, you wanted the piece of shit.

"Remember when we took our girlfriends out into the woods with your car? We got stuck, really dirty, and we still didn't get any. My shitty car would have gotten us there with no problems."

"Whatever little bro."

"Lieutenant Carmine?" a rather feminine voice asked Duke.

Duke turned around to see what was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Beautiful women had been leading because those that could use their beauty to their advantage tended to live longer out there with the Stranded; the others were hard as nails.

The woman was about five feet ten, taller than most women but still tiny compared to the Gears that surrounded her. She had the standard neck length female haircut that was suggested for most female Gears, many had been growing their hair out since they were constantly in a battle for their lives. Her eyes almost seemed to glow and sparkle like a freshly polished jade. Duke was glad he was wearing a helmet or he would have shown that he was blushing. This girl was almost as pretty as Anya was, Anya could stop traffic when she wanted to. She walked over, Lancer in hand and looked at him.

"Lieutenant Carmine?" she asked.

"Ah yes, Private Valeria Bates. Glad to have you on board." Duke responded back, unsure exactly how he was managing to respond anything close to an intelligent human being. He could see Dizzy whispering something to Clay and Clay nodding, Duke just knew that he had stupid smile he got whenever he thought something social was funny.

"Anyway lets move out. The Raven is waiting for us on the beach and we want to see what we can salvage from the vehicle graveyard." Duke ordered as he led the other three out the doors and to the helipad on the beach. Hopefully things would go smoothly this time, much more smoothly.

#####

**Hope you guys are enjoying this story. Please leave reviews in the comments section, need to know what you do and do not like about that story. Anyway things are slowly starting to warm up and get more and more epic with each passing chapter! Lovin it!**

***for all you clever devils, Sam Malone was the name of the bartender on Cheers. Thought I would quiz you.**


	6. Chapter 6

Ayers woke up with a headache, a really damn big headache. He could hear beeping and coughing, so much coughing. The air was thick with disinfectant and cleaning agents, so much that Ayers could almost feel the particles coating his lungs. His whole body hurt as his mind started to wake up and his nerves began to function. He let out a high-pitched groan as his eyes opened to bright sunlight.

The sunlight made it hard to see at first, he could barely make out someone sitting in one of the room chairs. Their head titled down reading what looked to be an old magazine.

"Who's dat?" he rasped, his throat extremely dry at the moment.

"Hey guys look who up!" the person sitting, who no doubt was Cole, whooped.

Ayers squinted as he saw a bunch of people walking in, some with gifts, others without. He was a little overwhelmed; he had mostly been talking to a busted up TAC/COM for the last two years and wasn't used to this much human contact all at once.

"Ayers baby, you gave us a bit of a shock!" Cole whooped as he pulled his chair up to sit next to him. "Can't be showing up and popping out of the blue when we have three tons of ugly pouring down on us! But shit man I been missin' yo jokes."

"Hey Cole Train, nice to see you too." Ayers rasped, his throat still incredibly dry.

"You sound thirsty Brett. How about a tall glass of water?" a woman with a Kashkuri accent asked him. It didn't take him long to figure out whom it was.

"You know I'm always thirsty. And in more ways than one." Ayers told Sam with a large smile on his face.

"Ha, ha. There it is you cheeky root rat." Sam told him as she passed him a glass of water. He took the lukewarm liquid and start to sip on it, grateful as he felt his throat starting to feel less scratchy. He heard more footsteps approach the door.

"Glad to have you back Brent." A woman with short blonde hair told him as she walked in after Jace.

"Shit Anya is that you? You've grown up since I last saw you." Ayers joked as he took another sip of his water.

"Well when we teeter on about twenty thousand people total, Gears became a little hard to find."

"So Anya who used to be my G.P.S is now my in the field C.O.?"

"Damn straight skippy."

Ayers smiled before she was called in on her TAC/COM and exited the room with a slightly concerned face. Ayers noticed Marcus standing in the corner for the first time, he could be really quiet when he wanted to, and he followed out after her. A few minutes passed and he looked to Jace.

"Are they…" he began to ask.

"Yeah, dawg you just now pick up on that?" Jace asked as he gave him a light punch in the arm.

"Yeah. No wonder she never took me up on any of those dates."

The group of people surrounding Ayers bed continued to talk and chat with him until the nurse came in to shoo them away about an hour later. After the group left Ayers felt alone again. Most people adapt to being alone, but not him. Every night he was alone at the rare campfires that he had allowed himself when the night had gotten too cold for the meager shelter he had obtained that night.

The night nurse came in at seven with her normal load of painkillers. Ayers had always refused them during his past hospital stays, they would sit on the tray until the next morning until the morning nurse came in and chastised him for wasting medication he didn't want or need. Ayers looked up at her, she was a middle aged woman. Streaks of grey tinted her reddish brown hair, her eyes looked tired, as if they had seen too much for her to handle.

"When am I scheduled for release?" Ayers asked bluntly, he was rather tired of being cooped up in this hospital.

"You've been in here for only a day. You came in pretty rough shape, chances are you will be released in a week."

"I'm fine, I want to be out on missions."  
"Fighting who? The war is over."

"We need supplies, we need people working and repairing. That's the Gears now. Not me lying around in a hospital bed that someone else could be using." Ayers replied as he scratched his side from the irritating fabric of the hospital gown, he hated hospital gowns. They were always so thin, itchy, and it was impossible to keep the back closed.

"Sir, you are required to remain here until you are discharged." the nurse repeated herself with a stern tone in her voice.

"Fine, whatever." Ayers said, feeling a bit wrong for acting like such an asshole to a lady just doing her job.

The nurse left him alone. This prompted Ayers to close his eyes and try to fall asleep. If he got some shuteye he might feel better in the morning when he was faced with lying in his bed all day again waiting for his friends to come visit him.

"Wish I was being shot at again." Ayers mumbled before he succumbed to the pulls of sleeps.

#####  
Jace left the hospital to go to mission briefing, despite the need to take a couple days off for his ribs to heal his was already being sent out on another mission. Hoffman had asked to see him personally before his mission briefing.

Jace walked into Command HQ and was directed to Hoffman's office. He knocked on the door and waited until Hoffman told him to enter.

Hoffman was sitting at a rather large desk, the kind Prescott would have worked at before his death. The man looked like he would have ripped his hair out if there was any left for him to pull out on his baldhead. Hoffman was a man of action, not the type to sit behind a desk and work on useless reports. Every chance he had to get in the field he would take it.

"Corporal Jace Stratton, exemplary career record, glowing recommendations from his squad mates, and top of his class in boot camp. But tell me, do you think you've earned any of these things?" Hoffman asked him in his straight to the point no bullshit attitude again.

Jace was caught off guard by this question. With this one of two things was assured, Hoffman would give him a sigh of approval and then tell him some amazing news or Hoffman would give him stare and assign him latrine duty for a month.

"Sir, it don't matter what people say about me. I get the job done, and I try to do it right." Jace replied as honestly as he could.

Hoffman leaned back and gave him a sigh. He couldn't quite tell if it was approval or latrine duty.

"Son, durin' the last three wars I saw hundreds of green recruits die within a week of fighting. Yet, there was always a handful that survived to make veteran soldiers and leaders. Towards the last few years of the war I saw you fighting, all I could see were the hundreds of soldiers who had died. I thought you would be blasted to bits by a stray ticker, or perhaps beaten to death by your own arm." Hoffman stopped for a moment to pick up a file folder and flick it open, scanning the contents before putting it down and looking back at Jace. "However, you were a stubborn bastard. But you were a lucky, stubborn, bastard. You've survived long enough for me to give you a promotion."

"A promotion, sir?" Jace asked, he was sure his jaw had hit the ground in shock.

"Fenix isn't always going to be on base, I can barely count on Baird to not blow us all up out of spite, and Cole continues to refuse any promotion we give him. Way I see it; you're the best choice for a promotion to sergeant."

"Don't know what to say sir."

"I'll take that as your acceptance. First mission, you will be leading Privates Takashi, Rojas, and Aligante on a search and rescue mission to a Stranded Camp outside of Mercy. The last squad we sent failed to report back to the pick up zone and all radio contact was lost. Your mission will be to go to the camp, find the missing Gear squad, and locate whatever was preventing the squad from making contact."

"Yes sir."

"Dismissed, Sergeant Stratton."

Jace walked out of command and was about to meet at the helipad before he stopped for a moment. Did Hoffman say Aligante?

"Shit." Jace mumbled as he went to the helipad.  
#####

Baird had barely caught up with the other four before they had taken off without him. The helicopter was in the process of lifting off before Baird had run over and grasped onto the edge, Clay had pulled him in and then left him sitting on the floor of the Raven.

"Thanks guys always need the exercise." Baird snarked as he stood up and held onto the rail above the exits to the Ravens to keep his balance.

"If you weren't messin' round in the workshop we wouda left with ya." Dizzy told him as he looked out the side of the Raven.

"Yeah, I'll remember that the next time you need a part fixed Dizzy."

"Ya know, when my girls acted up I would sit them in the corner and force them ta think 'bout what they'd done. You need corner time?"

"Fuck no."

"Then start actin' right."

Clay almost burst out laughing as Dizzy chewed out Baird. Dizzy never chewed anyone out ever, but Baird would be the exception.

After Baird and Dizzy settled down the four sat down in the seats and focused on grabbing some shuteye. Duke tried to close his eyes but he couldn't help but look at Valeria, she was new to the whole military aspect. Rookies never could get to sleep on a King Raven, about a year they would be able to sleep through a Lightmass Bombing.

Duke stretched and looked at Valeria. She stayed still and eventually returned eye contact.

"Can't sleep?" Duke asked her with a small laugh at the end of his sentence.

"Nerves." Valeria responded with a slight accent, not heavy enough that Duke could tell where from, but heavy enough that it was noticeable.

"Bit different from boot camp and Baird's basic engineering course, ain't it?" Duke asked as he leaned forward and held his hands together.

"Yeah, I'm used to fucking up and retrying, not fucking up and dying."

"You're not gonna die if one thing goes wrong. Big fuckups are a combination of ten shitloads of things going wrong."

"Right. Baird's motto."  
"Yeah, so how is he as a teacher?"

"I think I had a physics teacher like him once, ended up getting a D in that class."  
"I can imagine."

"Shut up," Baird murmured, Duke and Valeria looked over hoping that he hadn't overheard them. "Cole, charge up there. Monkey man." Baird muttered in his sleep as he rolled over on his side.

"Time to go to sleep. Night!" Valeria said as she closed her eyes and fell asleep quicker than anyone should have been able to.

Duke looked over and gave Baird a quick glare before leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. Falling asleep to kill the three-hour ride to the vehicle graveyard.


	7. Chapter 7

Jace watched as the King Raven passed over the town of Mercy. After the COG declared the town "clean" they had wasted no time in moving people from Azura to the town. Gears and volunteers had been called in to begin building barriers at certain points in town and clearing houses out for families to move in.

Jace sighed and turned back around to look at the three other men in his squad. Corporal Takashi, whose last name or first name never seemed to be revealed, was running a hand through his black Mohawk. Jace had served with him during Operation Midnight; Takashi had nearly died when a torque bolt had severed his rope, luckily he grabbed a portion of bridge and managed to hold on until he received a pick up. He had been promoted since Jace last saw him.

Next was Private Federic Rojas, younger brother and current guardian of Jan Rojas' four-year-old son. Despite having lost two of his brothers and most of the rest of his family he had a rather easy going demeanor, shit rolled off of him and he came up smelling clean and daisy fresh. He stroked his Lancer like it was a pet, a gleam in his eyes reminded Jace of a young child playing with a toy.

The last member of his squad was probably the oddest. Private Dante Aligante was tall and lean, heavily muscled but not noticeable until he flexed his muscles or was lifting something he found heavy. His white hair suggested someone who was in their upper sixties but yet he looked about as old as Jace was. His armor should have gotten him written up but it was so bizarre that his officers just ignored it. Instead of the normal steel gray or light blue armor that Gears normally wore his armor was crimson red. The COG symbol in the upper middle of his armor was colored white; all over his armor were white crosses. When asked what they were for he would shrug the asker off and normally walk off to do some sort of job he had been "assigned" to do earlier.

"Alright guys, we in and then we out. I want this clean and quick, no mess-ups." Jace ordered as the Raven started its descent towards the ground.

"Got it." Takashi told Jace, he always had a way of speaking for the whole squad when need be.

When the Raven touched down the four Gears jumped out and onto the ground. Jace pulled his Lancer off his back and held it in a neutral position, where he could pull his gun out and shoot but in a way that it wouldn't look threatening. He wanted to make sure there wasn't Stranded here that would make his new promotion short lived.

The squad moved up towards the front gate of the Stranded camp. As they grew nearer Jace started to smell smoke, smoke and burning flesh. They came to the front gate to see it had been battered and blown open, several Stranded corpses were scattered all over the front of the base and at the front gate.

"Did somebody ask for a fire and brimstone barbeque?" Dante asked in a tone that Jace couldn't quite pick out as joking or serious.

"What the fuck happened here?" Takashi asked as he raised his Lancer.

"I don't know, keep your heads up and on a swivel. Watch each other's back." Jace ordered as he raised his Lancer and started to enter the burnt remains of the Stranded camp.

The group entered the base and looked back and forth at the carnage. A woman hacked in half by a Lancer chainsaw, children burning. Jace turned to see Takashi throwing up.

"You alright bro?" Rojas asked him.

"I never feel right with dead kids, something so fucked up about that. I couldn't deal with it when we were fighting grubs and glowies."

"Keep it together guys." Jace told him, sounding a little like Marcus. "Alright, this is probably going to come back to haunt me, Takashi and Rojas check out the right side of town. I want check ins every five minutes. Aligante, with me."

"Got it." Takashi told him while wiping his mouth and walking off down a path filled with more burnt shelters and dead bodies.

Jace and Dante went left, Jace was nervous. This place gave off all sorts of bad vibrations.

The two continued to walk through the camp. Jace was starting to get unnerved by how calm everything was, even if the sight was horrifying, it was calm. The chaos that had raged when the events had started had ceased, now the dead were left to rest.

Jace closed his eyes and shuddered, when he opened his eyes he was greeted with the sight of one of the COG soldiers they had been assigned to look for.

"_Sarge, this is Takashi. Reporting in, found a pair of COG tags."_

"I think I found the source, we're near the kitchens. Regroup."

"_Over and out."_

Jace walked over to the soldiers, they had been taking cover inside a fountain before being slaughtered. One of the solders leaned over the side of the fountain, his neck blown off where his head barely hung on. Another had been blown in half from the waist. One of the soldiers was missing his head completely. The last one's face had been blown completely off, the only thing keeping it in place was the sides and front of his helmet.

"Where's number five?" Dante asked.

"What?"

"Weren't we supposed to find five warriors?"

After Dante had asked that question a volley of Lancer bullets skirted along their feet. One caught Dante in the ankle and he crashed onto his stomach behind the fountain, his Lancer slid away and out of his reach.

"YOU BASTARDS! KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BROTHERS!" someone yelled as they continued to fire bullets at Jace and Dante.

"Stand down! We're Gears, GEARS!" Jace yelled as he crouched behind the fountain.

"Gears?" the person asked as the bullets stopped suddenly.

Jace peeked over the edge of the fountain to see another Gear walking towards them; the barrel was still red and smoking from shooting bullets at them not two seconds earlier. He was clad in typical Gear armor, helmet included. He walked at them with a swagger in his stride that suggested he would start singing zippity-doo-dah and skip down the street.

"Gears? That means you came here to rescue us!" the Unknown Soldier told them.

"Yeah, I guess. You went missing so we sent a rescue team. Sorry about your squad." Jace told him as he stood up and looked around for COG Tags.

"What do you mean?" the Gear asked as he cocked his head and gave him a look that would suggest Jace was insane.

"I believe they have passed on from this life." Dante added as he tried to stand but slipped as soon as he put too much weight on his foot.

"They're fine, they're just under the weather, heh." the chuckle at the end of the Gear's sentence sent a chill up Jace's spine.

"Let's just get them and us out of here."

"What? Are you out of your fucking mind? They can't leave! They're too sick!"

"That one's missing his head, that ain't a fucking flesh wound." Jace yelled and pointed at the Gear whose head was still misplaced.

"HE'S FINE!" the Gear roared before aiming his Lancer at Jace and Dante. Just before he pulled the trigger something seemed to startle him. Panicked he looked behind him and screamed, bringing his Lancer around and firing off random bursts and seemingly nothing. "You won't get me! Not like you got them!" the Gear shouted before tearing off through the town, shooting randomly.

"_Sarge this is Rojas, what the hell was that?" _Rojas' voice crackled over the TAC/COM.

"We found the Gears, and the last nut job was about to kill us before something spooked him and he ran off. Managed to nick Aligante in in the ankle when he first approached."

"_Roger, be there in, hey we can see you guys."_ Rojas told them causing Jace to turn around and look at Rojas and Takashi who were approaching them.

A couple of seconds later the squad was reunited. Takashi wasted no time in acting upon his role as the squads back up medic when actual medics were nowhere to be found and started to treat Dante's ankle. Jace and Rojas walked off to the side so Rojas could debrief him on anything they found.

"We didn't find much, other than a bunch of bodies. Although one thing doesn't make sense." Rojas told Jace as he cracked his knuckles.

"What?"

"You notice there's no men dead?"

Jace suddenly felt that feeling when one realizes something that will be the cause of their whole life going to hell. That chilling of spine, stomach that drops to their feet, a cold sweat breaking out over their forehead.

"We also noticed the word primas scratched everywhere. No idea what it means."

"Primas?" Jace pondered as his forehead scrunched up in confusion.

"FUCKERS! TIME TO KILL THE FUCKERS!" a horse voice that sounded like someone had swallowed glass roared from behind Jace.

Jace was reaching for his Lancer as he saw Rojas pull his Lancer up and scream, "open fire!"

#####

Baird was in seventh heaven. So many machines all begging for him to pop their hoods open and take a look around at their inner workings. He had already picked up enough pieces to repair half of the vehicles that were wheezing and begging for new parts.

Baird had given Valeria a laundry list of things to search for and she had to find at least eighty percent of them if she wanted to graduate from Baird's engineering school. He always thought the kid could show promise, but she never had really gone out of her way to be the best. Although he noticed that sometimes the kids that did the worst in the classroom turned around and did the best in fieldwork.

Popping open the hood of an APC he started to strip a battery and an engine, which would be loaded up onto an old RIG that Dizzy had found and gotten working. The RIG would then take them back to Anvil Gate, which was only a couple hours away from the graveyard, and there they would unload and prepare for another two days in the graveyard.

Once Baird had gotten enough of the parts he had found secured to a flat board he ran over to a loader that had been lying around collecting rust and picked up the parts. He began to slow walk back to the RIG where Dizzy was waiting with a lift to bring up the parts to the top of the RIG.

"You gots the goods?" Dizzy asked as he spit a thick stream of dark brown liquid.

"Where'd you even find dip Dizzy? The grass?" Baird asked as he put the parts on the lift.

"You know I don't kiss an' tell." Dizzy winked at him as he pressed the up button and he lift started to rise up towards the top deck.

Baird rolled his eyes and grabbed a new flat board and then began to walk the loader back towards the graveyard, about three or four more trips and he would feel confident that they could call a lunch break. Baird passed by Duke and Clay who was wheeling back two motorcycles that looked like they were brand new.

"This is awesome!" Duke shouted as Clay chuckled while they pushed the bikes to the lift to be secured to the top of the RIG.

Baird walked back to a more obscure part of the graveyard; he had found that little pockets had the best vehicles and the best parts. Almost like they had been purposefully put there.

Baird exited the loader and began to check an old centaur tank to see if they couldn't drive it back to Anvil Gate and attach a few other working vehicles to the back.

There was a skittering behind Baird causing him to turn around to see nothing. _That was creepy, _he thought as he went back to work on the tank's transmission. There was another skitter behind him, this time Baird pulled out his Snub pistol and glanced back for a minute. Nothing happened and Baird went back to fixing the tank.

About half an hour passed, Baird stood up to stretch his back out. In the process he put his pistol back on his holster. It had been quiet for the last bit so whatever was creeping him out had gone away.

The sound of a gun cocking caused Baird to regret putting his sidearm away. He turned around to see an eleven-year-old kid holding an old Hammerburst right at him.

"Drop your guns to the ground and kick 'em over. Or I'll blow your face in."

#####  
Marcus stood on the balcony of his and Anya's room. He had been given one of the biggest rooms on Azura. He would have preferred a shack with three walls and a roof, but since Anya was there he opted for a little more. He still would have preferred a smaller apartment but he couldn't get that if he tried.

Marcus looked down and watched the waves crash onto the beach; the cool, salty breeze blew across his scarred skin. There were light footsteps behind him; he turned around to see if it was whom he was expecting.

The former communications officer was tiny compared to the huge beast of a man that was her lover. Anya hadn't stripped off her armor yet, even though there was no war Gear had had trouble keeping their armor off. Marcus could barely walk down to the Rusty Nail for a drink without his Lancer on his back.

"Hey." Anya said to him. Marcus replied with his trademarked grunt.

She walked over to the bed and began to strip her armor off until she was in nothing but her COG regulated fatigues and tank top.

Marcus couldn't help but admire her beauty, there was something about her when she had just gotten out her armor that made her ever more beautiful to him. Marcus didn't care what she wore; now he could just be with her without worry of being court martialed for dating a superior officer. She could come in in sweats and a big puffy sweater and he would still love her the same. Not that he could ever admit to that out loud.

"I'm going to go take a shower, then do you want to go get something to eat?" Anya asked as she walked towards the bathroom.

"Yeah." Marcus replied as he walked into the room and grabbed a plain white t-shirt from the closet.

Anya slipped off to the bathroom. A moment or two later Marcus could hear running water and the light sound of Anya singing some song from before E-Day. Marcus sighed, sat down on the bed, and put his head in his hands. A wave of nostalgia crashed over him, something that ached for times of long ago.

A knock on the door caused Marcus to snap out of his memories. The bed creaked as he stood up and walked over to the heavy oak door. Bending down he looked through the peephole. It was a Gear, he couldn't quite tell who it was but he had a feeling it would be okay. He opened the door and looked down at the Gear.

"Yeah?" Marcus grumbled as he gave the Gear a look that would make him question if he really needed to ask Marcus anything.

"Are you Sergeant Fenix?" the Gear asked very calmly.

"Yeah?"

"Fall at the hands of the Chimera!" the Gear yelled as he brought a knife up and attempted to stab Marcus in the throat.

Marcus barely managed to grab the arm that the Gear was using to try to sink the knife into his neck. The Gear was strong, but Marcus was stronger. Marcus slowly began to turn his assailant's wrist around until it snapped with a sickening cracking of bone. The Gear dropped the knife and recoiled back in pain. Marcus took the opportunity to smash the Gear's head against the wall, knocking him out cold.

The Gear crumpled to the ground. Marcus picked his attacker up and shoved him into a chair. The sound of a safety clicking off filled resonated through the room, Marcus turned around. Anya stood there with a Snub pistol, and nothing on but her skin. If Marcus smiled he would have, he never did quite understand why those movies always had the female go for a towel first. If someone had to fight naked, they had to fight naked. Helena Stroud would have walked out butt naked in the middle of a fire fight if it meant she had to get up and fight with no prep time at all.

"What the hell was that?" she asked as she held her aim on the man in the chair.

"Assassin. Pass me my TAC/COM and get dressed. A shit storm is about to go down." Marcus told her.

Anya nodded and handed him his TAC/COM as she went to the closet to grab herself a pair of fatigues and a shirt.

"Command this is Fenix," Marcus called in.

"Fenix this is Command."

"I found a little assassin crawling around, he has been subdued. Please advise."

"Gear up and bring him to HQ."

"Over and out."


End file.
